


Regenerative Trauma

by autisticromana (eloralouistra)



Category: CIA (Big Finish Audio), Doctor Who, Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Blood and Torture, Gen, the Celestial Intervention Agency
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 09:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3061853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloralouistra/pseuds/autisticromana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don’t get captured. It’s not so much an official rule of the CIA as a quiet understanding between every operative. Don’t get captured because we have no obligation to come for you. What is an official rule is that you don’t divulge any information to anyone, no matter what happens to you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Regenerative Trauma

**Author's Note:**

> A dark Gallifrey fic about the machinations of the Celestial Intervention Agency and Monan Host.
> 
> I'm not sure this fic really qualifies for the "graphic depictions of violence" warning but be advised, it is about physical torture and gets slightly gruesome.

Don’t get captured. It’s not so much an official rule of the CIA as a quiet understanding between every operative. Don’t get captured because we have no obligation to come for you. What  _is_  an official rule is that you don’t divulge any information to anyone, no matter what happens to you.

 Elora doesn’t need it to be a rule. She believes firmly in the CIA’s work and isn’t going to betray them for any reason. It’s nice though, when the torture gets more intense, to be able to comfort herself with the knowledge that even if she _did_ tell them what they wanted and somehow got out of this, she’d be hunted down and murdered for her treachery anyway. She screams again, as the laser cuts into her skin, and reminds herself how much better it will be to die in the CIA’s service. Even if it  _will_  take several more days of torture to get to that point.

The Monan Host apparently don’t take kindly to CIA agents rummaging through files on the anomaly that caused their world’s creation. They seem to take even less kindly to agents refusing to tell them CIA secrets.  _This_  Monan does, at least. She still doesn’t know his name, can only think of him as the interrogator. He barely speaks but to ask her again what she knows of secret CIA projects, weapons, new technology and to tell her how much better things will be, how the Host will look after her, if she just gives in. She’d laugh at that, if her throat wasn’t too hoarse from screaming. Swearing, taunts, pointing out that she’s far too unimportant to the CIA to know much - “They don’t even care that I’m here. Didn’t you notice how fast my team got off the planet when you caught me?” - gets no response but a further shock of pain through her body. It’s going to be a very long few days.

It’s a relief when she finds her body failing, a warm glow of energy in her fingers and toes. One life down, twelve more to go. She planned out her new body years ago; working in the CIA, she could regenerate any time and had wanted to be prepared. It almost doesn’t matter now, this body is likely to last a couple of days before the Monan triggers the next regeneration, but she holds tight to this last piece of control over her life. She even smiles as she feels her body change, the scars heal up. It doesn’t last long. Her body’s still glowing when she hears the Monan actually speak.

“I’ve heard that for some time after their regenerations, Time Lords can use their regenerative energy to heal wounds. We’ve always wanted to know exactly how that works.”

The laser comes down on her left hand before she’s even fully taken in what he said. She hears her new voice for the first time, screaming in pain worse than any so far as he cuts away her smallest finger. She blinks away tears, staring out at her interrogator from under hair far darker than she’s used to and glares at him.

He gives a thin smile. “I’ve _also_ heard your people imprint on whoever they have present at their regeneration. I hope that means you like me enough to tell me what I want to know now.”

“Rot – in a black –  _star_!” she spits out, hating that he’s  _right,_  that despite everything, she’s lost all desire she had to see him dead, and he brings the laser down on another finger. Even through the pain she can feel the first one he cut growing back but it’s no comfort at this point.

“So it’s true,” he murmurs, staring at her hand. “The Host World could make great use of regenerative technology.” She feels horror at more than the pain then, because she understands now what this is about. Of course the Monan Host don’t expect a lowly operative like her to know all the CIA’s most closely guarded secrets. That’s not all they want; it’s to understand regeneration, to find a way to use it for themselves. And with their level of technology, with twelve of her bodies to work on, she has no doubt they’ll succeed. All because she was foolish enough to get caught. He cuts off the next three fingers and with every one that grows back, it feels like another betrayal of Gallifrey. And then he starts again.

She’s lost the fingers of her left hand four times before he seems to decide that’s enough to study for now and she’s pushed off to the cell she spent the previous night in. She shudders at the sounds of pigrats skittering in the corners of her cell - “Imported from Gallifrey, they should make you feel more at home,” the jailer had told her, grinning – and curls into a ball, wiping her blood covered hand on robes that are now too tight. Maybe, she thinks bleakly, she should be smaller in her next regenerations. Not that her comfort is her greatest worry at present, she has to think of  _something_ to stop them using her to find the secrets of regeneration. She  _can’t_ die having achieved nothing but inadvertently betraying her people. She hasn’t managed to think of anything by the time she falls asleep.

*

Elora wakes in a CIA medbay. She can’t think of a time she’s ever been so relieved. She has a box of her fingers thrust at her – of course, they would have been almost as important to retrieve from the Monans as she was, although she can’t see why they think she’ll _want_ them – and is allowed to change into robes that aren’t the wrong size and covered in blood and smelling after more than two days with nothing else to wear, before she’s sent to her superior, Idiel.

Idiel raises an eyebrow when Elora thanks her for the rescue. “We’ve made relations with the Monans very uncomfortable now. You think you matter enough that we did that for your sake?”

“I wouldn’t want to be the cause of Monans getting regenerative technology, Ma’am. I want to die in the CIA’s service, not betraying them.”

Idiel gives a slight smile. “Then I’m glad to still have you here, agent. We need more like you.” Her face darkens. “But  _don’t_ get caught again.”

She runs a thumb over the fingers of her left hand, shivering slightly. “No, Ma’am.”


End file.
